Here Be Anthropomorphic Dragons

A map of online communities (click on the map for a larger version) and social networking from the web comic xkcd. It's from last year (so of course I'm only seeing it now) and already some of the lands should be resized (up Facebook, down MySpace) and a new island of lolcats is probably required, but other than that its incredibly detailed and funny.

Strange Maps, where I origianlly came across this clever piece of cartography, has a version with a slew of comments explaining some of the more obscure terrirtories. And I'm off to sail the Sea of Memes on my way to the Ocean of Subculture.

If I Had a Million Web Fans

It's interesting to see how the Barenaked Ladies are embracing all the hot web trends at once. If you go to their MySpace page you can download a version of “Wind It Up” from their upcoming album Barenaked Ladies Are Me, where they are asking aspiring air guitarists to film their most inspired air licks to accompany the song. Once their fingers have stopped bleeding they can upload it to YouTube where the band will pick some of the performances for the song's video. It’s a cool idea.

They are also allowing fans to remix another song, “Easy,” and are providing all the tracks for those with dreams of producing or DJing. They will then pick the best versions and release an EP of the results. There are plans to release the whole album on USB flash memory stick. I’m quite impressed. I expect other bands are embracing the web as wholeheartedly, but this is the first I’ve heard of it.

The band has always embraced a DIY process, making a best seller out of a self-made cassette of their music in the early ‘90s. Nice to see that pioneering spirit remains after all these years.

Sing, Sing A Song…

It’s been a bad year for music. Well, for me at least. I was looking at my iTunes and I only have half a dozen albums recorded in 2006 and we are already halfway through August. This is appalling.

The last two albums I got were The Raconteurs' Broken Boy Soldiers and Johnny Cash’s American V: A Hundred Highways, with its heartbreaking version of “If You Could Read My Mind.” Both great albums, but I’m hardly overflowing the iPod.

There is one little ray of sunshine in all this – my friend Rob let me know about a new Sloan album coming out in September, so at least I’ll have seven albums by the end of the year. You can get a taste of the 30-track (!!) opus with the first single “Who Taught You to Live Like That” over on their MySpace page, which makes me very happy. Hey, who knew there was good stuff on MySpace pages?

Anyway, I can’t let this situation continue so I’m appealing to all my readers to tell me the best music they’ve heard this year, or at least summer. Albums would be best as I’ve never been one for singles, but I’ll take on all comers. So help me out everyone, don’t let this musical atrophication continue. I’ll be listening to Raffi and his ilk soon enough as it is.

P.S. - I'm doing a spot of guest editing over at Scandal Sheet this week. It's fun to be mean and gossipy.

America's Most Hated

• Everyone’s a critic. First Brokeback Mountain isn’t good enough for the Oscars, now it’s the Massachusetts Department of Correction. A prison official has been disciplined for showing the multiple-award winning gay cowboy film to the state’s largest prison after it was determined the movie contained content inappropriate for a prison setting. "It was not the subject matter. It was the graphic nature of sexually explicit scenes," said spokeswoman David Wiffin. Umm, sure. Next week they will be airing season one of The Sopranos and than catching the inmates up with Prison Break.

• Kevin Federline is managing to piss off more people, which is quite a feat as most people are already annoyed with him. In his ill-fated attempt to rap his way out of being known as Mr. Britney Spears, K-Fed is continuing to record and release singles on his MySpace site. On "America's Most Hated” he sampled Mobb Deep's "Got It Twisted," who had sampled Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science.” Deep got a license, K-Fed didn’t and Dolby was not amused and forced him to take it down. "You can't just take a very well-known piece of music and add your own vitriolic rap over the top of it and get away with it," said Dolby "It's like what Vanilla Ice did with 'Ice, Ice Baby,' although I think Vanilla Ice is a superstar compared to this guy."